Pulling his reluctant victim along, he slammed the stable door behind him. From someplace within his tunic another length of leather was brought. “Put your arms about that roof post,” he snarled, wrapping the leather about her wrists when she complied. She had not dared to refuse him, for she had already learned that each defiance of his will caused him to jerk upon her collar, which choked her. He didn’t know his own strength, and she feared he would break her neck. The collar about her throat reminded her of that time so long ago when Blanche had sold her to a slave dealer, and he, too, had collared her like an animal. Then, however, she had Dagda to protect her. How she wished him here now.
Eric Longsword unfastened her heavy woolen cloak and tossed it aside. Carefully he lifted her tunic and pushed it up over her shoulders and head. Loosening her skirts, he let them fall to the ground. He might have ripped her camise, but, thoughtfully, he pushed it up over her head too with the back of her tunic top. She could hear his breath coming in slow rasps as he gazed at her naked back, legs, and buttocks. She stiffened when he smoothed his rough hand down the expanse of her skin and cupped her buttock.
“It is very important,” he said in a calm and logical voice, “that you understand I am your lord. I will not be spoken to again as you spoke to me earlier. Now, Mairin Aldwinesdotter, I want you to say to me, ‘Eric Longsword is my lord, and my husband.’ ”
“You are totally mad!” she burst out furiously. “How can you do this, Eric Longsword? You claim to love me, yet you would steal me from my rightful husband, and my child.”
“You have a child?”
“A little girl, Maude. She is almost eleven months old.”
“I will give you sons,” he said matter-of-factly.
“No!”
“Yes!” he said. Then he unfastened the leather lead from her collar. “You are too bold for a woman, Mairin Aldwinesdotter. You do not know your place. A woman should not speak unless she is spoken to, and then she should speak but briefly and with modesty. My father, may God assoil his soul, taught me this. Women, he said, must be taken care of and cherished, for they have not the native intelligence of a man. God, my father told me, created women for several reasons. For man’s pleasure, to bear and nurture new life, and to care for a man’s home, all his needs, and those of his children. It is all a woman is good for, but you do not seem to understand that, for all that is said about your intelligence.
“When we returned to England, you shamed me before my friends and fellow guardsmen by your coldness to my suit. Still I pursued you and offered you marriage. Your brother, Brand, mocked me, Mairin Aldwinesdotter, and said your father would not squander such a rare and valuable daughter on the heir to but five hides of land. He said your family could get the heir to five hundred hides of land for you.
“I returned home, and then our Earl Tostig was overthrown in a plot that we all knew to be instigated by his brother, Earl Harold. My parents were slain in their own hall, and I but barely escaped with my life to join Earl Tostig. Our lands were taken from us. I did not wish to live away from my country, and so when I learned that Harold Hardraade planned an invasion I joined with him.”
For a moment he ceased his speech, and once again he ran his big hands down the length of her naked back and buttocks. Mairin sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep from screaming aloud as he fondled her flesh slowly.
“I knew your father and brother would be with Earl Edwin and his men,” Eric finally continued. “I knew Earl Edwin would come to the aid of his puling brother, Earl Morkar. I sought for your kin upon the battlefield, Mairin Aldwinesdotter. I saw your father, and I tell you he was more than worthy of his name. He was a great warrior, and even I, younger and swifter, could not have beaten him. So I thrust my sword into his back, and he fell to the ground mortally wounded. It was then your brash brother appeared, and fool as he was, was more concerned for his father than what was going on about him. He knelt at your father’s side, and I was able to fell him in a single blow, but before I might finish your father off, that giant servant of yours appeared in the mist. I was forced to flee, for I could not have hoped to overcome him. Also, if my helmet had come off in a fray, I would have been recognized.
“I came to claim you with Eadric, but again you shamed me and mocked my suit. You avowed a marriage with some accurst Norman! With your father and brother gone, I had intended having both you and Aelfleah. You should have been mine with them dead! You should have been mine, but now you are, for I have taken you from the Norman. Let him have Aelfleah. It is all the Normans want. Land! He will quickly make a new life.”
“I am another man’s wife,” said Mairin desperately. She was numb with the knowledge that Eric Longsword had been the murderer of her father and brother. For the first time in her life she wished she were a man so she might take up a sword and kill him! She had disliked him before. He had made her uncomfortable, but now she hated him with a deep and burning hatred. She didn’t know how she was going to escape him, but she would, and then she would avenge the death of Aldwine Athelsbeorn and Brand.
“You are my wife,” he told her. “You should have been all along. I am only righting that wrong. We need no holy man mumbling words over us.”
“You really are mad,” said Mairin quietly.
“You need to be taught proper obedience,” was his cold reply. He flicked the leather strap by her ear, and instinctively Mairin winced. Eric smiled. “I’m going to beat you,” he told her, “and when I am through I intend fucking you. The sooner you learn that I am your master, the sooner we may begin to find happiness.”
“You killed my father and my brother,” she shrieked, frustrated, at him. “I hate you! I will always hate you!” And I hate that damned calm voice of yours too, she thought.
He aimed the thin length of leather at her back, and was quite satisfied when she cried out. He followed the first blow with several others until her smooth skin was crisscrossed with pale red weals. Still he was not satisfied. After her first soft cry, more of distress than pain, she had clamped her lips shut and refused to make any sound. Angrily he looked about the barn. Nearby was a bale of hay. Kicking it with his foot he found it was solid, and untying her hands so he might free her from the post, he forced her facedown upon the bale, his fingers tightly grasping the dog collar to keep her under control despite her struggles. Then he retied her hands, looping the leather about her slim wrists, cruelly yanking her arms forward over her head.
Content that his prey was again helpless, he doubled the leather strap, and without ceremony brought it down across her naked buttocks. Mairin yelped and squirmed in an effort to escape him, but with a grin of satisfaction he clamped a hand on the back of her neck and began to rain a series of hard blows upon her posterior.
She had never been beaten in her entire life, for Aldwine and Eada had been gentle parents. She knew that being whipped, and sometimes severely, was commonplace behavior amongst parents and children, husbands and wives, but even Josselin had treated her with kindness. She wanted to defy Eric Longsword, but she could not under these conditions. As her stomach was weak for strong wine, so her body could not bear the brutal punishment that he was now administering to her. She could not prevent herself from screaming, from begging him to cease his torture.
“Please,” she shrieked, “in the name of the Blessed Mother! Stop! Stop!”
“Not until you admit that I am your lord! That you belong to me, and to no other man!” he ground out through gritted teeth.
“I cannot, I cannot,” she sobbed, the tears pouring down her face.
“You can, and you will!” he shouted at her, and redoubled his efforts, laying blow after blow upon her already red bottom.
She felt as if she were on fire, and made a desperate effort to struggle away from him. She had to escape the pain he was inflicting upon her. Then it came to her that whatever she might say to him would not change the truth, whatever he might wish to believe. She was Josselin’s wife no matter what Eric Lo
ngsword thought, and as that thought penetrated her brain, so did her intense desire to survive this experience, to escape him and return to her family.
“You are my lord, Eric!” she screamed at him. “You are my lord!”
“Wh-what?” For a moment he seemed confused. “What do you say, Mairin Aldwinesdotter?”
“I yield to you,” she said. “You are my lord.” Her backside was aching, and she was shaking inside. Let him believe me, dear God, she silently prayed.
“Yes, I am your lord, and it has taken you long enough to accept it, Mairin Aldwinesdotter.” Rolling her over he lifted her off the bale and carried her to a pile of straw in an empty horse stall. “Now we will consummate our union,” he said, laying her down and fumbling with his clothing as he lay atop her.
He was going to rape her! My God, what had she done in admitting that he was her lord? She had given him virtual permission to attack her! “Please,” she pleaded with him, “don’t do this thing, Eric Longsword!”
His body lay atop her, pressing her down into the hay. His cold blue eyes stared into her face. “Have you lied to me then, Mairin? Either you accept me as your lord, or you do not. Did you lie to stop the beating?”
“No! No!” His look terrified her. “It is just that I do not feel I know you. It is all so sudden.” Her teeth worried her lower lip.
“If you really accept me as your lord then you must accept this. Most are wed without a long acquaintance.” He pushed himself off her and stood up. “I want to see you naked,” he said, and pulled her to her feet to undo her bonds.
Mairin rubbed her freed wrists for a moment. There was no way she knew to escape him short of death, and she wasn’t that brave. A tear slid down her cheek. How could she ever face her husband again after this animal had soiled her and spoilt her for Josselin? His fingers hooked themselves into her collar.
“Remove your garments,” he said, and Mairin, having no other choice, did. When she stood nude before him he stared for several moments at her, and then releasing his grip upon her, spread her cloak upon the straw, pushing her down upon it. He stood above her, his legs spread, licking his dry lips like a diner contemplating a good meal. Then without warning, he fell upon her like a madman.
Mairin couldn’t help herself. She fought him wildly, but he did not seem to mind. Indeed her struggles seemed to serve as a spur to his ardor. His big hands were everywhere upon her body, squeezing and pinching and fondling. He smothered her with his wet kisses, jamming his tongue into her mouth with a ferocity that left her gagging with disgust, but he didn’t seem to notice. Now his lips fastened themselves upon her nipples, and he suckled upon her with strange grunting noises, and when she tried to push him away, his teeth punished her, and she screamed with genuine pain.
His passion was a frenzied one, and now he began to moan and mutter at her. “ ’Tis time, Mairin! ’Tis time for me to fuck you!” He pulled her into the curve of his arm to contain her struggles, looking down into her face as his hand fumbled between her thighs. “You’ll like my fucking, Mairin! All the little girls liked my fucking!”
She felt his fingers invading her body, eager and thrusting.
“I’m called Eric Longsword for two reasons,” he whispered lewdly at her. His breath was foul. “Do you know why, Mairin? Can you guess why?” His fingers were working fiercely within her. “Ahhhh, sweetheart, that’s so good! How long I have waited to put myself into your sweet body!” The fingers moved back and forth, back and forth. “Tell me you like my fucking, Mairin!”
She was horrified. Only his fingers had violated her. Was this some terrible joke? Was he only waiting to complete his rape of her? Then suddenly Eric Longsword stiffened, and throwing back his head, howled a Viking war cry before collapsing next to her. His hand fell away from her body, and Mairin was absolutely stunned. She didn’t know what to think. What to do. Then hearing a small snore, she turned her head cautiously to discover Eric Longsword had fallen asleep beside her even as Josselin might have done after a bout of love.
She could not believe what had just happened. Was this to be all he was going to do to her? He had behaved exactly like a man who had made love to a woman, and yet he had not really coupled with her. She knew she should be grateful to have escaped him, but she was frightened too. Had he been drunk from the liquid he had earlier imbibed? When he awoke, would he remember what had happened and right the mistake upon his part? Mairin was totally confused.
She lay upon her woolen cloak, her injured posterior alternately burning and itching, and stared up into the rafters of the barn. There was no doubt in her mind now that she was in the possession of a madman. If he was a sound sleeper she might obtain the opportunity to slit his throat, for the small feminine purse hanging from her girdle contained a little knife. If she killed him, however, how could she escape, and which way would she go? Outside their shelter a storm was howling and roaring. She had absolutely no real idea of where they were. Common sense told her that she had to stay with him until the storm stopped, and until they reached some sort of civilization.
She wondered again about what had passed between them tonight. Had he really believed that he was coupling with her, or had it been some macabre joke on his part? Would he go further the next time? She had been absolutely terrified and ashamed by the thought that another man could use her as only Josselin had the right to do. The very thought of making love with her captor repelled her. If he meant to attack her further, how was she to hold him off? It was this thought that warred with her more practical side.
Mairin shivered, and coming back to her senses, realized she was freezing in the drafty barn. She sat up, and turning, looked at Eric Longsword. His mouth was open, and from it emitted a series of loud snores. It was obvious that he was sleeping deeply. Mairin cautiously arose to her feet, and reached for her camise, which she quickly slipped on. Next she stepped into her skirts, and pulling them up, fastened the buttons with trembling fingers. Her tunic top slid silently over her head, and picking up her girdle she fastened it loosely about her waist. She could already feel the warmth seeping back into her veins. Burrowing back into the hay of the horse’s stall, she drew the piece of the cloak he was not lying on over her.
Sleep would not come. Mairin was much too anxious. Where were they going? Scotland was every bit as big a country as England. She had to gain more information from her captor, and that would mean playing his game. He wanted a docile lump of a female, and she would be one for him as long as it suited her purpose. He had no blood ties to Scotland, and therefore, he had sworn an allegiance to someone with power. He would be returning to his overlord, and it was that overlord to whom Mairin would appeal. But how long? How long until they reached that power? How many nights must she bear his advances? Would those advances eventually become the final intimacy? Dear God! she thought. This is a nightmare, and I pray the Blessed Mother that I live long enough to awaken from it.
They awoke to a clear day. The sky was bright blue, and a cold yellow sun shone down upon the snowy landscape. Mairin, her violet eyes lowered modestly, followed Eric Longsword back into the main room of the cottage. Seeing the purplish bruise upon her cheekbone, and her now quiet demeanor, the other men in the cottage grinned apishly at one another, and then at Eric with obvious approval.
“Did she yell louder when ye beat her, or when ye stuck it to her?” demanded the loutish Fergus.
“What do you think?” said Eric with a grin. He slid an arm about Mairin, and openly fondled a breast.
Mairin flushed, but remained silent and still.
“She’ll be my tamed little bitch now, won’t ye, lovey?”
“Aye, my lord.” The words were half-whispered.
“Sorcha’s made a wee bit of oat stirabout. Help yerselves, but quickly. We must be off soon.”
Mairin managed to discreetly detach herself from Eric Longsword’s grasp, and going to the fireplace where the three Scotswomen huddled, she saw a single remaining trencherloaf. She looked for per
mission from the women, and the eldest of them nodded at her.
“Take it, lass,” she said in an almost friendly tone. “ ’Tis the last of the bread we carried from York. ’Twill be the oatcakes and dried beef from now on until we reach Edinburgh.”
“Thank you.” Mairin sliced the loaf in half with the knife the woman proffered. Better not to let them know she possessed a weapon of her own. Scooping out part of one half of the trencher she filled it with the thick cereal, and gave it to Eric. He took it from her without a word, and began to spoon the oat porridge into his mouth with his fingers. Mairin turned back to the fireplace, and put a little of the mixture into her own half of the trencherloaf and began to eat quickly. She knew enough to know that this was no courtly society, and that when Eric was finished eating she had best be finished too.
Edinburgh! So they were headed for Edinburgh, Scotland’s chief city. She couldn’t be certain, but she would wager that Eric Longsword had pledged his loyalty to King Malcolm. That would mean he would be taking her to court, provided she remained the docile female he believed a woman should be. She knew men enough now to know that he would want to show off her beauty to other men. To be envied, and to be congratulated upon his good fortune in having such a beautiful woman for his own.
“How far is Edinburgh?” she softly asked the woman who had spoken to her. Her voice was guileless. Her expression bland.
“At this time of year? Five to seven days,” came the reply. “We’ll be making our own path, ye see, with the roads snowed over like they are. If the roads was clear ’twould be no more than three days.” The woman reached out and touched the bruise upon Mairin’s cheekbone. She winced. “He wasna gentle,” the woman said, “but ye’ll heal before we reach the city.”
The men had finished with their meal, and realizing that she would see little, if any, food before nightfall, Mairin hurried to cram the rest of the cereal and bread into her mouth, washing it down with water from a cup her talkative companion was kind enough to offer her. The horses were saddled, and they began their journey north once more. As yesterday, Mairin rode before Eric Longsword upon his large horse. Today, however, he did not hold the leather lead to prevent her escape. Instead he slipped his hand around her to clamp it tightly about her breast, and as they rode he kneaded her flesh with such regularity that she thought she would go mad. She could already feel the black-and-blue marks he was impressing into her skin.
Enchantress Mine Page 39